I has decided to change my life away from construction, settle down and we met while both doing a Master of Business Administration. We fell for each other and were blessed with a daughter 2 1/2 years later.
Rather than live in my house around 20km from CBD she wanted to live in a house 10km from the CBD that she purchased telling me it was from inheritance. The emotional regulation issues began around 2 years after our daughter was born. I encouraged her to get help and offered to go with her to therapy but “they were her sessions”. I managed to get by acceding to requests one of which was to live in Europe for a year to see how it goes and could return if any of us wanted. Once there I found myself trapped. In 2009 after she moved out of the house we had purchased together into another house and stated all the assets were hers and “if you contested anything I will ensure you never see my daughter again”. All the Parental Alienating behaviours accelerated.
It was during the 10 Australian court cases that I learned more about her than 16 years living together:
- I had been forced to leave the Netherlands after she stated ”I will tell the police you have been abusing me for 10 years and they will believe me because I am a woman”. When she physically attacked, unable to secure restraining order I fled 6 days later, believing we could sort out remotely. It made them worse!
- We started settlement discussion (through lawyers and looked like we would settle amicable and share custody) but meanwhile she lodged a court case in the Netherlands (serving to my old Netherlands address so that I could not contest that case).
- Her inheritance did not purchase the house in Australia and discovered I had put in a very substantial proportion to make it liveable (and tenantable for when moved to Netherlands). We had been in financial distress.
- She had been ringing my mother to say the kids & I did not need to go out Sunday to visit my grandfather.
- In court, the lies were prolific and found it time consuming and hard to prove something that did not happen, actually did not happen. The delay tactics and lies took years and 10 cases in Australia and the high court in Netherlands.
- She had been seeing a psychiatrist (not just a counsellor) and those subpoenaed notes revealed she had “become jealous of me as I had a better relationship with daughter and wanted to destroy it” when our daughter was just 3 y/o.
- She flew interstate “one of the cast of crazies” that had a web page trying to solicit donations to recruit mercenaries, who lodged a false police report (for fraud as selling a property per court orders and took many tense months for notification the file was marked “no crime detected”), threatened those associated with property sale and issued veiled death threat me amongst other activities.
- The police helped one woman that the “nut job” threatened (a warning phone call) but after all his other activities including the death threats to me informed me “we are not allowed to help you”.
My daughter will not have anything to do with me as she saw her mother suffer (playing the victim and only that perspective) and while I tried to get her to do tertiary studies in Australia, offered to meet her anywhere in the world and still write every month, unsure if any messages get through or if her mother has taken control of the email service.
While the mother probably has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD, which is a cluster B disorder) that has never been successfully diagnosed and treated, the impact on all those around her and particularly the kids (I helped raised her son) remains something society needs to learn from. Cluster B’s are high conflict, unable to negotiate / compromise as have little empathy and therefore some scientists (and a social worker at the BPD Foundation) say feature highly in protracted Family Law cases. There were 10 cases in Australia and I was awarded the right to claim costs on every occasion but that drawn out conflict and systems abuse aided the child abuse that is alienation.
The police are regularly complicit in this form of child abuse known as Parental Alienation through their failure to prosecute the criminal acts (including lodging false police reports and perjury) associated with the Parental Alienating Behaviours. Setting boundaries is something essential to managing BPD and people around them suffer because the police fail to act.
I try to accept what has happened and live the best life I can but every day is a struggle, especially around special dates.
For more details you can read: The Pinball Machine The Family Separation Industry and Parental Alienation.